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What Bill Belichick said after UNC football win at Syracuse
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- What Bill Belichick said after UNC football win at Syracuse
The North Carolina Tar Heels finally won another football game. In a spooky Halloween contest on Friday night, UNC marched into Syracuse and left with a dominant, 27-10 win.
North Carolina (3-5, 1-3 ACC) snapped its 4-game losing stread and emerged victorious for the first time since September 13, when it controlled Richmond in a 41-6 blowout. The Tar Heels played a complementary brand of football on Friday: making Syracuse (3-6, 1-5 ACC) uncomfortable defensively, while shifting into another offensive gear during second-half play.
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UNC's defense, which limited the host Orange to just 147 yards, was particularly effective in the passing game. North Carolina made true freshman quarterback Joseph Filardi uncomfortable throughout, forcing 14 incompletions and holding him to 39 yards. Melkart Abou-Jaoude dominated in the trenches, leading his Tar Heel teammates with six total tackles, 2.5 TFLs, two sacks and a forced fumble.
UNC's offense, which struggled to finish drives in the first half, played near-perfect football in the final 30 minutes. North Carolina scored on three of its four second-half drives, but its lone empty drive resulted in Gio Lopez kneeling out the clock.
The Tar Heels totaled 425 yards, with star true freshman running back Demon June collecting 182 of those. Lopez look confident and decisive at quarterback, finishing with 15 completions, two touchdowns and a season-high 216 yards.
You know things are going well in Chapel Hill when Bill Belichick smiles. If you watched Belichick's postgame, on-field interview, UNC's head coach cracked a smile, praising his new team's process and it finally starting to pay off with Friday's result.
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Speaking of Belichick, let's read a few of his postgame thoughts. All quotes are via InsideCarolina.
On resilience after UNC's first-quarter fumble
"Well, you know, you put a lot into it. It's hard to surrender. So these guys have been working hard."
On Demon June's career night
"It's great. When we see guys do what he did down the sideline, his stiff arm on another 34 yards and touchdown run did a really good job of him finishing the touchdown on the toss play, getting his pads down through the goal line, all that. It's just seeing guys make plays with the ball in their hands and are hard to tackle, and it gets everybody fired up. But I thought all our backs did it, and they ran hard, and good pad level, and once again, the backs ran a good ball security."
On trying to gameplan for two Syracuse quarterbacks
"I'd say we basically stuck to it. But you have to be aware of who that player is or was, and that definitely caught us a little bit by surprise. But I know from experience, it's a short week, you can't change your whole offense in a week. And so you do what you can do for the quarterback, but the other 10 guys, to try to stay consistent with them. And I know they were going through some changes on the offensive line, with Washington at guard and Cruz at center, says that some moving parts there, a new center with a new quarterback. So that's tough for me. I know for Coach Brown, that was something he had to deal with this week, and it was a challenge. But I think once the game got going, we just tried to play our coverages and try not to let the quarterback beat us with his legs. He got out a couple there, a couple times. But you know, overall, we did a decent job."
On preventing Syracuse from getting into an early rhythm
"I think the big thing was really the running game. I mean, when you take away the running game, then it just makes it a lot harder. If you can't take away the running game, then the passing game is a lot easier. If the coverage isn't as good, the quarterbacks are more comfortable under pressure, being able to stop the running game and eventually play with the lead. Those things."
On snagging his first ACC victory
"Feels good. It feels great. Yeah, it's good. We had a couple of opportunities the last couple of weeks that we weren't able to capitalize. It feels good to get this one. Look forward to all the rest of the games."
On UNC's offensive line production after Chad Lindberg 's injury
"Yeah, Jordan (Hall) in particular, has done a really good job for us. He's continuing to improve in practice, and we gave him some playing time early in the game. And then, unfortunately, when Chad went out, Austin (Blaske) went to center, which he's been practicing as our backup center, so we were kind of ready for that move. Obviously didn't want it to happen. But when Chad wasn't able to go back in then Austin went in for him, and (Will) O'Steen stayed at guard, so then Miles (McVay) has been getting some snaps on the right side. So, we're fortunate that we had that kind of depth, and guys were able to step in there and play well. But Blaske's a natural center, so I don't think that was a big as big an adjustment for him as it might be for somebody else."
On overall offensive execution
"It was really just better execution. It wasn't like we had a whole bunch of new plays or anything. We just executed a little bit better. And again, our backs made some good runs. We got a few holes open, and then the backs made yards on the run, and they ran hard. Three yards became seven, and those things added pretty quickly. We skipped a lot of third downs. We were able to get some first downs on first and second down. So we weren't in a lot of third-down situations like the first half, and that was helpful, too."
This article originally appeared on Tar Heels Wire: What Bill Belichick said after UNC football team snaps losing streak
